The Kid Does All Right.

Last night was my pre-audition workshop for the Neo-Futurists. There were about 30 of us there. It was hosted by Greg and Bilal, two of the Neo-Futurists. The whole affair was really, really informative and helpful. I walked away from the event with a better understanding of who the Neo-Futurists are and what they're trying to do onstage and an awareness that my first audition piece, four years ago, was absolutely innapropriate to the audition process. I also knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that my current audition piece will not work either. So, I walked home from the theater, formulating a new audition piece for the next audition. I think I've got one, but it will require me to polish up my ukelele playing skills. Can you guess what I'll be doing at home for the next 15 nights?

I did have one moment of clarity in the audition last night, that, I think, illustrated my potential as a member of their ensemble. The audition workshop was located in the lobby of the Neo-Futurist theater and there was a rehearsal going on, on their mainstage. Periodically, a man, wearing whiteface would run through our space to get from one side of the theater to the other. Occasionally, we would hear the sounds of loud, pumping music coming through the walls of the theater, too. It wasn't disruptive to our class. It was just background noise to what we were working on.

The last exercise of our class had a storyteller telling a short story about themselves. Something with a beginning, a middle and an end. After the finished, another student of the workshop would take the stage and tell a condensed version of the same story. Another student would tell a condensed version of that story. And so on, until we'd stripped away all of the gratuitous "ums" and "yeahs" and got to the core of the story. The deeper, inner truth. From there, we would add information, edit the story and change things to tell it from a different perspective. I never told my own story, but I did take a few runs at the retelling of other's stories.

The last story that was told was, to my ears, profoundly sad. A middle-aged, older woman told about a 3 year relationship that she was in. Towards the end, the guy in the relationship moved to a town, a few states over. Rather than end the relationship, the woman just began sleeping with anyone that she wanted to. The guy never figured it out and she never told him. Eventually the distance killed the relationship. But the two of them stayed friends. And she never told him about the other men.

She said two things that caught my attention. First, she repeatedly said, "I don't feel bad about it" and "people only confess things because they want somebody to make them feel better about it, but since I don't feel bad about it, I never told him." Later, she tipped more of her hand by saying, "The sex with the other men just wasn't that good. I think that was my penance for lying to this other guy, really terrible sex." Which begs the question, "who is judging you?" and "If you don't feel bad, then why even bring up the concept of penance? Isn't penance reserved for bad actions?"

The incongruity of those two sentiments, "I don't feel bad" and "I feel like my penanse was bad sex" were the two ideas that I wanted to explore when I took the stage for my condensed version of the story. Here's a rough analogue to what I said...

"I was in a relationship with a man that I was really good friends with. Three years passed, and I found that I didn't love this man anymore. So, I slept with other men. A lot of other men. I don't feel bad about this-"

At this point, a man's voice came screaming through the wall of the theater, a long, drawn-out wrathful scream, that was so long and so loud that I just held my next line to let him finish his. What he said was...

"I NEVER TOOOOOOOOOOOLD HIM YOOOOOOOOOUR NAME!"

And it was so perfect a cap to what I was about to say, better even than the line of dialogue that I was going to choose, that I made the most powerful statement that I could've made - by saying nothing and then going to sit back down in the house. I got laughs, cheers and wild applause from the other students in the workshop, for embodying the Neo-Futurist ethos, "Everything is real. Use only what is there. The truth is more interesting than some staged fiction."

After the students quieted down, Greg spoke briefly about improv training and how it can prepare you for any possibility. And how he, himself, was never that good at it, how he preferred to have written dialogue. But that Neo-Futurists can not be prepared for what is going to happen and that they have to be prepared for anything. He closed it off by saying, "I can't think of a more perfect illustration of that, than that last piece" and he began the process of ending the workshop with final questions, comments etc.

I felt good about my work in the workshop. I did what I wanted to do there (which is "to not fuck up terribly", in fact, I lucked into excelling). I learned a lot. About what they're looking for in a new ensemble member. I learned that my current audition piece, while being closer to the mark of what they want to see, isn't close enough. And I got a good look at my competition. Who they are. How old they are. How they chose to express themselves. What they had to say. How they dealt with the audition process. All information that I can take in, process and use to my best ability, at my actual audition.

I can't say that mine will be the best audition that they'll see in this round. But I CAN say that it will be the best audition that I can possibly give them. And that's really all that any of us can do, in any audition.

Cheers,
Mr.B